All Chapters of Alora's Windsong: Chapter 51 - Chapter 60

The convoy rushed through the early morning fog in grim silence. The howls had stopped hours ago, replaced by the low rumble of trucks carrying our wounded home. Blaise drove the lead vehicle, his jaw tight, blood still crusted on his collar. I sat beside him, one hand gripping his arm, the other pressed to the pulse in my belly — steady, thank the Goddess.Behind us, in the back of Dad's Hummer, lay Ryker. Still unconscious. Still breathing. Jenna refused to leave his side. Beth and Sam had stayed back to help with the others who were too wounded to move yet.Every bump in the road made my stomach twist. Ryker’s skin was ghost-pale beneath the streaks of dried blood, his chest rising shallowly under heavy bandages. The healers had done everything they could on the battlefield, but the wound on his side ran deep. Too deep.When the gates of ‘Midnight Mountain VenomFang Pack’ opened, the crowd waiting inside fell into eerie silence. Warriors, families, and elders — all lined the road,

The night shift at New Hope State Mental Facility had been calm—too calm.Fluorescent lights buzzed faintly along the corridor, throwing pale squares of light across waxed linoleum. The smell of bleach hung thick in the air. Beyond the reinforced doors, the patients slept under sedation, each in their assigned rooms, each accounted for.Until she wasn’t.“Room 12B is empty!” an orderly shouted, bursting into the nurses’ station. Papers were scattered across the counter. “She’s gone!”“What do you mean, gone?” Dr. Hadley demanded, snapping his head up from the patient reports he’d been signing. His chair screeched backward. “That room is triple-locked down by Alpha’s orders.”The orderly was shaking. “Locks were intact. Cameras show nothing—she just isn’t there.”The monitors flickered on the wall. Sixteen security feeds, each showing static. Three minutes are missing from the timeline. Hadley’s stomach sank. “How long has she been gone?”“Thirty-two minutes,” the nurse said, pale and

The day began quietly, the kind of stillness that felt like the world was holding its breath. The sky was dark grey and heavy with clouds that promised rain. I shifted in my chair by the window, one hand resting on my swollen belly, feeling the steady roll of movement inside me. Our son had been restless all morning, almost as if he sensed something was about to change.Blaise watched me from the doorway. He looked worn but content, his golden eyes sharp with worry. “You sure you want to walk today?” he asked me.I smiled faintly. “If I stay in this chair another hour, I’ll go crazy. He’s already practicing for a race in there.”Beth laughed as she grabbed her coat. “Then let’s go. Fresh air might help you both.”We all stepped outside together. The mountain air was cool, the path damp from an earlier drizzle. The smell of pine and earth mixed with the faint crackle of energy that filled the air before a thunderstorm. The trees whispered in the wind, bending low as though listening. B

The clang of the metal door echoed through the cellblock, sharp and final. Jake flinched as the lock disengaged and two guards stepped inside, their expressions carved from stone.“On your feet, Hayes,” one of them barked. “You’re being transferred.”Jake blinked, confusion twisting his face. “Transferred? To where?”“Not our problem,” the second guard said, snapping cuffs over his wrists and leg irons on his feet. “Orders from the top.”They didn’t give him time to argue. Chains rattled as they shackled his ankles and fastened a heavy waist chain. The steel bit into his skin when they hauled him out of solitary. He stumbled once, the guards jerked him upright.“I’ve got rights!” Jake spat, glaring at them over his shoulder. “You can’t just move me without—”A baton pressed against his ribs. “Keep walking.”The corridor was silent except for the jingle of his restraints and the squeak of their boots on concrete. The rest of the inmates stayed quiet, watching through their tiny cell w

The condo was warm when we came in. Beth had started a fire in the fireplace and left a note on the bar, “Going to spend the weekend with Dad, helping him decorate his new place, don't get too freaky while I’m gone.”The last blush of sunset painting gold across our walls. The hum of life from the pack grounds drifted faintly through the windows, distant and safe. For the first time in months, the world felt still.Beth had gone with her father to help him finish the new garage apartment out back, leaving Blaise and me alone. The silence was thick, charged, like the moment before lightning strikes.Blaise set the keys on the counter and turned to me. His eyes found mine, slow and hungry but soft around the edges, the kind of look that stripped away every layer of strength I’d been wearing since the war. “Home,” he murmured. “Really home.”I smiled, stepping closer until his warmth pressed against me. “We made it back.”He brushed his thumb along my jaw, tracing the edge of a smile.